How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading

In the beach house we are renting resides a small sampling of books:  Nicholas Sparks, James Patterson, Lillian Jackson Braun, Danielle Steel.  I, of course, don't go anywhere without a sizable stack of my own, so I didn't have to resort to these authors this week.  Instead, I finished Jacob's Room (which I don't plan to comment fully on after all - suffice it to say that I remained intrigued with the concept if not enamored of the whole experience) and began Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren's How to Read a Book.  My in-laws all found this title extraordinarily ironic. 

My connection with Adler began when I was in the 5th grade and enrolled in a new magnet school based on Adler's Paideia philosophy of education.  I did some college projects on the Paideia philosophy, so I have read most of the books he wrote on that subject.  But I just stumbled across this classic text at a used bookstore some weeks ago and figured I should give it a read.  Written originally in 1940, and revised and updated in 1967, this text has offered a mixed bag of thought-provokation.

The idea here is that of a practical exposition on reading: like an appliance manual or a cookbook, it wants to teach you how to properly (note the importance of this modifier!) accomplish this thing called reading.  The book is divided into four parts and attempts to cover a broad range of questions surrounding the art and craft of reading.  The first section focuses on the first two levels of reading which Adler and Van Doren call "elementary reading" and "inspectional reading."  These levels confront the basic notion of translating symbol into meaning and how to first approach a book - skimming or prereading, if you will.  Part two devotes itself to the third level of reading: analytical reading, and it gives you specific and demanding rules for how to properly engage with a book.  Part three provides more detail about how to approach different kinds of books, with chapters entitled "How to Read Philosophy" and "How to Read Social Science."  Part four takes on "The Ultimate Goals of Reading" - what they call syntopical reading and the general idea of growing one's mind through reading.  If all this summation doesn't make you laugh or turn you off entirely, knowing that the whole text is over 400 pages long will probably do it.

So, why have I persisted with this work?  Well, it is actually interesting. . . to a degree.  They have managed to break down and examine the intimately familiar act of reading and have transformed it into something almost foreign.  I have learned a few things, agreed with a few points (in particular, the claim that "the dictionary also invites a playful reading.  It challenges anyone to sit down with it in an idle moment.  There are worse ways to kill time" (178), and found their ideas lacking in some areas.  It is a bit pedantic, but the overall effect has been positive. 

In part one, Adler and Van Doren argue against the trend of speed-reading (which was apparently quite popular in the 60s) by insisting that speed is not the ultimate goal of all reading.  Increasing your speed might help you enjoy or comprehend what you read more, but you should not always view faster reading as better reading.  "Many books are hardly worth even skimming; some should be read quickly; and a few should be read at a rate, usually quite slow, that allows for complete comprehension" (39).  I agree with their point and actually take it further to assert that within any given book, there might be sections that demand more or less time and attention depending on their subject matter.  For example, in this book, I have annotated and perused the first two sections (as possible teaching tools) fairly seriously, but I mostly skimmed the third section. 

Perhaps the most interesting assertion they make, though, could be applied outside the particular realm of reading.  In discussing the proper ways to disagree with an author, they offer three ideal conditions which they call "the sine qua non of intelligent and profitable conversation" (155).  They follow those assertions with this jewel: "But the ideal here, as elsewhere, can only be approximated.  The ideal should never be expected from human beings" (155).  As a part-time perfectionist, I had to pause at this moment.  How could you lay out rules and insist that they cannot be expected to be followed?  It is in this statement that Adler and Van Doren show their hand:  this book is not just an auto-repair manual or simple "how-to".  It is a philosophical treatise on a dying art, an attempt to conjure and protect some worthy craft that has been too-long neglected.  Only after pausing in this moment was I able to get to the bottom of my unsettled feeling about this text.  It claims to be a hands-on practical application book, but I could not imagine anyone wanting to read it who was not already an avid reader.  It is preaching to the choir, or to the teachers anyway, but it claims to be an evangelist. 

Perhaps it is this underlying conflict that made my non-bibliophilish in-laws laugh at the title.  Perhaps the non-readers knew automatically what it took me reading most of this book to figure out.

Beach Reading

Every year, when we head to the beach, we bring with us a few new things for the children.  Mostly, it is stuff to interest them during the long car ride, and usually it involves new books.  This year, we didn't get very many new items (although Curious George Goes to the Beach is a new one); instead, the library provided most of our "new to us" experiences.  Our kids love audiobooks, so we usually get several before a long trip.  Thursday, before we left, I found that our library now "loans" audiobooks as mp3 or wma downloads.  Of course, wma is not automatically ipod supported, so compatibility is a bit of an issue, but I did manage to download several good ones for the trip.  Less to carry/pack is always a good thing.  Happy car-riding children is one of the best things out there.

One caveat: Arthur's Audio Adventures covers several of the original Arthur the Aardvark tales; however, each short book is separated by the same obnoxious (and LONG) Arthur song.  Perhaps it is part of the animated TV series?  I don't know, but I do know that two days later, it is still ringing in my ears. 

The Arthur fiasco aside, audiobooks have really been a beautiful thing for our family.  Especially as our kids get older, the books become more interesting for all involved.  This time, we are working through J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan.  Is there anyone on the planet not familiar with this great story?  I've known the tale for years, but realized as we began listening to the book that I've never read it.  What an unwitting loss I've suffered all these years!  The Disney movie version is surprisingly faithful to the original book, but it does not capture Barrie's unbelievably blithe wit and subtle winks at the parents who undoubtedly would be reading his book.  It is fantastic!  And though the e-edition I have is cumbersome (it is downloaded as a single track, so to return to your spot, you have to fast-forward through hours of material.), the story is so good as to keep us enthralled. 

The other bit of childlike pleasure I've been enjoying lately is The Borrowers by Mary Norton.  Homily, Pod, and Arrietty are charmingly real characters, and I especially love the frame story technique.  It was interesting to watch as our daughter worked out the concept of someone in a story telling a story.  At first, she would ask why we weren't hearing more about Kate and Mrs. May, but she soon settled into the story, focused on the little ones, and seemed to forget about those big humans.  Now, we're almost finished, and Mrs. May and Kate have resurfaced.  Though their reintroduction is interesting, we are in total suspense as to what has happened to Homily, Pod, and Arrietty, which is, I imagine, exactly what Norton desired for that rhetorical technique to achieve. 

What about you?  What's your favorite children's book?  Any suggestions for next time?

Reading While Moving or Why I Hate Endnotes

I am a woman on the brink.  Just barely back from the dark side of a move.  There are still 4 boxes upstairs that may not be unpacked for some time (YA literature my kids aren't ready for, and we don't have shelf space for), and I'm still not convinced I like where the dining room table is sitting.  But I am beginning to return to life, which means work and reading.  Right after the TBRs went into my closet/sanctuary/office, I perused as though they were all new again and chose the next read.  The problem is that I chose a book that was a poor fit for my easily-distracted mind: Virginia Woolf's Jacob's Room.

I've always been a quiet fan of Woolf's, as many women who read are.  I had the great fortune of taking a class on Conrad, Woolf, and Joyce during a summer term at Cambridge.  I have read many of the most popular works and have her collected essays and diaries on my TBR shelf.  The Indigo Girls song "Virginia Woolf" is one of my favorites.  But Jacob's Room is not captivating me.  I am impressed by it.  I am intrigued by the concept.  I even have passages - beautiful, intelligent, otherwordly passages - underlined in it.  But I do not want to keep reading it.  It is not compelling me.

Jacob's Room is a complex narrative that centers around a mostly absent or invisible main character, Jacob.  Woolf is playing with perspective, relationship, and personhood through the varied and variable depictions of Jacob from boyhood (seen mostly through the eyes of his mother) through adulthood (seen from many angles).  I am only about halfway through, so Jacob still remains shadowy - as he perhaps might for the duration.  And while the concept is challenging, thought-provoking, and alive, the narrative is dragging horribly for me.

I blame the endnotes.

I hate endnotes.  I don't know why exactly although I have some suspicions.  One reason could be that much like my inability to discard a book I haven't read yet or am not enjoying reading, I have an extremely difficult time ignoring the notes.  Footnotes aren't so bad because I can easily glance down to see if the notation is merely a citation or a reference to some compelling bit of information that will ease and inform my reading.  But endnotes require me to keep the page handy and flip to the end of the book and back again just to see how relevant the note is.  And most of the time, the note is completely unhelpful and thoroughly disruptive to my reading.

For instance, during a predictably confusing passage of fragmented conversation and description, we get a note.  I flip to it, hoping I might get some explanation for what is going on or some greater meaning to all the noise and confusion.  Instead, I get a note that explains Woolf observed (and recorded in a letter to her sister), a similar scene in a noisy restaurant in London.  Really?  You needed to tell me that the author pulled an example of something she observed in real life into her fiction?  That's astonishing!

Of course, I understand the academic scholarship reasons for such a note.  It is interesting to find correlatives between the fiction and personal writing of an acclaimed author.  However, it contributes nothing to my reading of the novel.  In fact, it interrupts my reading and causes me to continually question my ability to interpret the work appropriately.  The notes make me feel there is some right answer out there, and I need to constantly be checking my answer against the key. 

I will finish Jacob's Room, and I hope those shining examples of Woolf's great skill can overcome my frustration with the act of reading this text.  Perhaps, I could binder-clip the notes pages together.  If I make it harder to get to them, maybe I could finally ignore them and just read.